1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to games normally played in an arcades and other environments, and more particularly to redemption games allowing a player to receive one or more prizes in connection with playing the game.
2. Background of the Related Art
Games of many types are played in bars, arcades, homes, and other public and private establishments. In bars, taverns, and like places, games can be provided on bar tops, side tables, and other areas. These games typically include a video screen and buttons or other controls for the player to influence objects and events portrayed on the video screen. Common "bar-top" games include card games (poker, blackjack, solitaire, etc.), quiz games, sports games, and the like. Bar-top games typically provide a score based on the player's performance during the game, and may also provide a high score list which provides incentives for players to perform well.
In game arcades, convenience stores, and the like, more involved games are often offered, such as stand-up arcade video games, pinball games, and mechanical or carnival games. Some of these types of games are offered as redemption games which dispense redemption tickets to players based on player performance during the game and/or a game score that the player achieves. A player can exchange dispensed redemption tickets for prizes available at a prize display area, such as a prize booth or prize vending machine, where such prizes as stuffed animals, models, other toys, small music devices, T-shirts, food, etc. are available. Each prize has an associated cost or "price" in terms of redemption tickets which the player can pay to redeem the prize. A player may collect tickets over time to save up for larger prizes that may have higher ticket prices.
One problem with the redemption games of the prior art is that maintaining a redemption system can be very involving for the operator of the arcade, to the point of being burdensome. For example, operators must maintain a prize booth or vending machine which displays all the prizes the operator wishes to make available. Requiring even greater maintenance is the setting and adjustment of ticket costs or prices of the prizes. The operator must determine how many tickets are paid, on average, by each game in the arcade and then determine the price of each prize in terms of tickets and in view of a desired profitability level. The operator knows the cost of the prizes that he or she paid, can come up with a crude estimate of average ticket payouts to players, and can thus estimate ticket costs with a rough profitability in mind, but the task can become overwhelming when a large variety of prizes are offered and many different types of games can be played, each game having a different ticket payout and difficulty level. Many arcade operators end up simply providing very gross estimates of what prizes should be worth in tickets, with no exact or global level of profitability in mind. This may lead to extra or unknown costs which can be magnified over time when large numbers of prizes are redeemed by players.
There is also a very large untapped pool of redemption game players in bars, taverns, and other, non-arcade public places, such as stores, hotels, food establishments, etc. This is because the games typically offered in such places often have low appeal to players due to the absence of any sort of tangible award or prize that is received by playing the game. For example, the bar-top and other games typically found in bars may quickly get uninteresting if the only reward a player receives is to put his or her name on a high-score list.
However, non-traditional gaming environments such as bars are not very suitable for supporting redemption systems like those found in gaming arcades. The proprietor or bartender of the non-arcade environment often does not want to provide a booth or area to display available prizes for players due to the additional maintenance and staff needed for such a display area. More importantly, the proprietor typically does not have the knowledge to properly adjust payouts of redemption games and offer prizes with proper and profitable ticket costs. Even if the proprietor has such knowledge, the small numbers of games and/or the secondary role of games in non-traditional gaming environments does not warrant providing a prize display area and does not warrant the abovementioned overhead of providing and counting the many tickets that players may accumulate and providing/maintaining ticket costs for various prizes in view of a desired profitability of the games.
Other gaming environments for players include homes or other private places. Players have been able to play board games, computer games, video games, etc. at home or other private environments for a long time. However, with the widespread use of standardized large-scale networks such as the Internet and World Wide Web in recent years, players of video and computer games at home are offered an environment to compete with each other which was not widely available to game players before. A player can connect a home computer, video game console, set top box, or other device to the Internet using telephone lines, cable TV lines, or other connections to the home. The player can thus play games offered to the player from a remote server or other source. The player can also compete or otherwise interact in a game with hundreds or even thousands of other players who are also connected to the Internet.
However, although a wide array of options are available for home game players, players typically cannot play games from home to receive prizes. Players may often desire to receive a prize after playing a game or participating in a tournament, but no standardized prize redemption system is provided to home players. Any administrator of such a prize redemption system faces the same problems and overhead as described above when attempting to organize ticket winnings and offer prizes at ticket costs adjusted for a desired profitability.
Other problems with prior art redemption systems involve the use of standard redemption tickets to receive prizes. In the prior games, the players can exchange redemption tickets won from a game for prizes available at a prize display area. Each prize has an associated "price" in terms of redemption tickets which the player can pay to receive the prize. A player may collect tickets over time to save up for larger prizes that may have higher ticket prices. However, certain prizes, particularly the more expensive or larger prizes, require so many tickets to buy that the player often is not motivated to play the games to win tickets. In addition, the player knows that only the same types of tickets can be won when playing any of the games, and this type of award may not be exciting to players in many instances. Furthermore, a player may not know which prizes are available and may thus not have a particular prize in mind when playing a game for tickets, which can lead the player to become disinterested in the game. Finally, games provided in other, non-arcade public places or non-redemption environments, such as bars and stores, may have low appeal to players due to the absence of any sort of tangible award or prize that is received by playing the game. Yet, as explained above, these traditionally non-redemption environments are not very suitable for supporting games using standard redemption tickets, since the bartender or owner of the non-arcade environment typically does not want the overhead of providing and counting the many tickets that players may accumulate and does not want to spend the extra effort involved in providing and maintaining ticket prices for various prizes. These problems are undesirable in an arcade environment or other redemption game environment where revenues are directly related to players' continuous, repeated use of the games.